


ode to what you’d have been

by kitcassiachan



Series: seen: a haikyuu collection [13]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio Friendship, Jealous Hinata Shouyou, Jealousy, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Hinata Shouyou, Post-Time Skip, Sad with a Happy Ending, very very mild one-sided past atsukage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26843260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitcassiachan/pseuds/kitcassiachan
Summary: 5 times it’s Kageyama’s fault and the 1 time Hinata realizes it has never been.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Series: seen: a haikyuu collection [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711519
Comments: 35
Kudos: 276





	ode to what you’d have been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CharWright5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharWright5/gifts).



> hi char: 
> 
> so ummm, this was meant to be an exchange treat but I was impatient and it was the Miya birthday so here it is. I really loved your “clingy/jealous Hinata” prompt because we see so much of Atsumu being that and I thought it would be fun to reverse it and then the new episode brought some AtsuKage feels so I wrote a little something. I hope you enjoy! (I tried not to hit any NOPTs but please ignore my existence if I still did, rip).
> 
> for everyone else: there is no cheating or infidelity or love triangles in this. atsumu loves hinata and they are happy and fluffy, it’s more of an exploration on jealousy as a feeling, and the kagehina friendship. (but everyone is happy!!)
> 
> the song of this is: [the anchor by bastille](https://youtu.be/Bbf-U6G9ndU) 💕

**ODE TO WHAT YOU’D HAVE BEEN**

It’s a Kageyama problem Hinata realizes pretty quickly. Kageyama is nowhere to be found, probably in Italy, eating frozen sorbet, but this thing in Hinata’s chest, like game nerves that don’t wanna come out from the top or the bottom, is something he made go wrong.

Atsumu’s mad. Hinata hates himself for being right because it means he can’t be the one apologizing, which is what Atsumu needs to get over it.

Hinata’s reasoning as follows,

**_one:_ **

The position of the setter is one where you essentially serve many masters or leash many dogs, depending on who you’re asking. Many, being the prime word. The setter is one who has many.

So it’s a wonder someone like Hinata continually vies for their attention. Natural for a spiker to gravitate to the giver of his wings, but strange that a person so jealous by nature would want to repeatedly get his heart squeezed. Again and again.

Enter Kageyama.

Hinata learned to love volleyball with Kageyama as his setter. And they had a good thing going just the two of them, a quick they could accomplish that left the world shaking, routines, the mental synergy. Kageyama got him but more importantly, he got Kageyama more than anyone else on the team. They were fast friends, faster rivals, and Hinata, per Kageyama’s own words, the light leading him out of a very dark and echoey tunnel.

So then, Atsumu.

Who got him instantly, who still gets him without having to ask. They have a good thing going, a quick they can accomplish that leaves the world star-struck, routines, the mental synergy. Days they kiss, days they fall asleep in the same bed, kissing, days meant for the two of them, where they hold each other and love each other and kiss.

Atsumu has friends. This is objectively a good thing. He’s impressive, also good. An amazing setter, an amazing person, an amazing boyfriend.

He gets everyone. He’s always out there, just, getting people, and Hinata, well, Hinata sort of wishes Atsumu was Kageyama only in the way Kageyama struggled to be understood and only Hinata could approach him, moving slowly like he was coaxing a wild animal at the edge of a dead-end alleyway.

He kind of, sort of wishes Atsumu didn’t set equally well to everyone else on their team, that Sakusa and Atsumu didn’t have a thing, that Bokuto and Atsumu didn’t have a thing. A good setter has a thing for and with everyone.

It’s selfish to want to shine brightest, but if you don’t fight rough enough to be the best, there’s no point in chasing it at all. This is not a mentality Karasuno instilled in him but one he claimed for himself, one he shares with Oikawa, who gave it to Kageyama first.

All roads lead back to him.

_**two:** _

Kageyama meets Atsumu first—this is years ago, in high school. A bit of a touchy topic for them both because Hinata’s first year, Atsumu meets Kageyama, his second year he makes a pass at him and by their third year, Kageyama makes the national team and Atsumu cries about him.

He tells Hinata when they’re dating. That he cried but “in a good way” because he saw Kageyama was incredible and it overwhelmed him to think about it, maybe because Kageyama told him no, to coffee, to dating.

Hinata doesn’t push it, despite wanting to know, and doesn’t tell him of all the times he wished he had been just a little bit better so it would have been the two of them, sharing that camp. They already have the perfect story.

“Hell, I might have been a hitter for him,” Atsumu jokes once, only once.

Hinata knows every detail of every stain on the carpet below him the night Atsumu said it. They were sharing a hotel room that had two single beds. He remembers being annoyed— _Inherent homophobia!!_ Atsumu joked; he’s full of bad jokes. Remembers Atsumu tickling him into laughing. Hinata circling towards it once he’s done. He remembers the talk like it was yesterday and for a whole month it was yesterday, and yesterday, and yesterday because Hinata kept bringing it up.

“It was a joke,” Atsumu tells him for the hundredth time, cradling Hinata in his lap. “Ya think I’d ever give up setting? Me? Being just a regular ol’ hitter? Sharing the spotlight with all of ya? You know me, Sho-chan. I made a bad joke.”

Bad jokes don’t ask people on coffee dates after matches. They don’t call people Tobio-chan and look positively thrilled to play them. They don’t talk about them at length when they’re cuddled up in bed, Hinata’s mouth still raw and bitter-tasting, but Atsumu can’t shut up about his sets— _he’s so precise, literally a machine!_

Osamu says Atsumu liked Kageyama because he used to be obsessed with volleyball and Kageyama was great at it. Atsumu liked the idea of playing with Kageyama, not Kageyama himself. Like Kageyama, he was all about volleyball. It’s the “like” part that makes him nervous, the things they have “like” each other.

Osamu says he’s fine, trust him, he’s fine. They’re twins and Osamu has known Atsumu long enough to realize he’ll be walking him down the aisle. And Hinata will be standing there, waiting to put a ring on his finger. _Trust me, runt, it’s you all the way._

Trust is a tricky word. _Don’t you trust me?_ Atsumu asks, and Hinata does, really, _really really_. He trusts Atsumu will never lie to him and that he’d never cheat.

Jealousy isn’t about cheating. It’s the hot rage that bubbles inside him before he can control it. Innocent moments where he feels less than, undermined, like Kageyama purposely smiling too much this way and how he’s purposely showing off, knowing Hinata’s boyfriend likes to see him play. When he dipped under the net and set that perfect set and Hinata could see in that split second Atsumu fucking loved him. Atsumu’s loyal but it’s so damn easy for Kageyama to pull that out of him; he doesn’t have to try.

Jealousy is the fact that whether they’re best friends or not, Kageyama feeds off of the attention Atsumu gives him, always has and did it first, and just that fact in itself makes Hinata furious enough to make dumb retorts. _What’s bothering you? Nothing. Sho, I know you. It’s nothing, fucking nothing. Ok, don’t curse at me. I told you nothing, why’d you push it?!_ Ok, ok.

“Just...” it gushes out, wet and stupid.

“Put your hands on him if you’re so goddamn obsessed all the time.”

_**three:** _

Kageyama likes people in a weird way. He has weird crushes and goes about them weirdly. For the longest time, Karasuno thinks it’s Hinata he’s soft for and knowing Hinata’s gay, they try to make it happen.

So they get stuck on a “blind date,” the first of what’ll become a weekly thing of theirs, hangouts where it’s the two of them alone, not doing much but existing side by side. Sometimes they pick activities, arcade, that new plaza, often it’s the same food and walking routine. They toss too, a lot. 

Karasuno thinks they’re dating. They’re not. Hinata does it for Kageyama. Kageyama doesn’t realize what he’s doing. He’s a simple creature, instinct-driven, not emotional but heart-led.

It’s his body that speaks. With volleyball, he feels it in his belly and with Atsumu is just the same. He doesn’t tell Hinata but Hinata knows. Because when Atsumu talks to him, Kageyama angels his body towards him, leans back or forward or sideways, is pulled to listen and accept him with every inch available.

The camp drives a deep wedge between them, widens the skill gap. Kageyama stands further than ever before, almost at the top, while Hinata battles to cling to what’s left for him. Kageyama sets to the best. Hinata picks up balls for people who wish they were.

“Why’d you say no then?” Hinata asks him right after the confession.

“I don’t know,” Kageyama says and for him, it’s a good enough answer.

Their third year, the title is closer than ever before, the same can’t be said about their friendship. With others, they pretend. It builds confidence in the team to see them get along. On the field, run like a well-oiled machine. It’s practiced, rote memorization. Kageyama deciding, Hinata follows. Three years that streak remains unbroken.

Hinata’s good now. Kageyama has recruiters watching.

They stay in the same inn as their first year for the memories. Go on a run to ease the nerves of their last tournament together, and Kageyama tells him he’ll keep playing, and Hinata says he probably won’t, not in the way Kageyama will anyway. He needs space and difference, room to be alone.

“Atsumu-san will be there tomorrow,” Kageyama says randomly.

He isn’t. Why would Atsumu-san be at a high school tournament is beyond Hinata’s logic but Kageyama keeps looking in the direction of the stands, never once let down because he will be there eventually.

“I told him when we were playing,” he explains, as they keep moving through the seeds. Kageyama keeps telling him. Atsumu never shows up.

Kageyama gets recruited for the National team and “Atsumu-san might be there.”

He isn’t—doesn’t make the cut. Kageyama is already better.

Kageyama plays professionally like “Atsumu-san” and plays against them, the Jackals, asks Hinata if he saw. They remain friends whether Hinata wants to or not, and Kageyama keeps Atsumu-san fresh in Hinata’s life and mind with updates on his progress.

Hinata makes the Jackals team.

“I’m dating him,” he tells him. It’s over the phone, not in person. Out of respect, so Kageyama knows how to react next time they see each other. How this topic is now off-limits. 

“I see,” Kageyama says. In person: “Is Atsumu-san gonna come?”

_**four:** _

They crush the Adlers and Kageyama wants to meet up for drinks. This isn’t unusual of them, a habit Hinata has learned to love. They play and taunt each other, one of them wins, gleefully, the other loses, less than gracefully, and they hang out like old times, trading stories and jabs.

Only this time it’s Atsumu, who tells him. Kageyama asked him first. “For the both of us,” Atsumu says, “He knows we live together, Hina.” And because he notices Hinata doing the panic thing—“I won’t go if you don’t want me to. I know it’s like your guys’ thing.” It turns into a fight.

Of course.

Atsumu hugs him tightly and rocks him on his lap. Hinata clings to his neck and loathes himself for it. “It’s just him, only him,” he excuses helplessly. Because it is just him.

He can get a little clingy, yes, like when they’re out with the team in a loud bar and Sakusa lowers his mask, leaning closer for Atsumu to hear, or when Hinata’s a little bit tipsy, a lotta bit sad and he’ll nudge into Atsumu’s side, whisper softly in his ear: “Hey, can you make it really obvious we’re together for a second?”

A second is all he needs. Just one tiny, little second of Atsumu kissing his nose in front of others, squishing his cheeks, calling him his baby, hugging him as he speaks across a full table, animatedly, with gestures and an arm around Hinata’s waist.

Ever since their first argument, Atsumu knows how to help him. Hinata told him point blank: _I love you. I know you love me, but sometimes I don’t love myself enough to buy it. Help me build my self-esteem. I’ve never ever had something like you in my life and I don’t know how to not be scared._

But Kageyama.

He bulldozes through his walls no matter the reinforcements. Because he’s better, he has always been better and Hinata doesn’t want to admit it, fights for the games where he’s not, finally, for once, but the truth is, he is, and what’s he to do about it?

“Some people would say he’s good but had a lot of things going for him. You’re good despite everyone in the world tryin’ hold you down,” Atsumu tells him, fingers curling around the shell of Hinata’s ear.

Hinata lays on his body, pouting. “Don’t baby me.”

“What if I want to?” Atsumu laughs. “Let me baby you for a lil bit, do it for me.” He rolls them around so Hinata’s against the bed, Atsumu on top of him, grinning. “Won’t you be my lil baby for a lil bit, lil Shouyou?”

Hinata bites his bottom lip to keep from smiling. “No.”

“Tough shit, Imma do it anyway,” Atsumu says, and they cocoon under thick blankets with their faces always touching, and Atsumu talks him through his own story, reminding him of all he has accomplished without missing a single plot point—that he played against the world and turned down an offer from the best of the best. _To be with you! To be with me. We’ll be together always._

“I know you think I find you annoying when you doubt yourself,” Atsumu says, “But I love any opportunity to ramble about how in love with you I am.”

Anyone would be lucky to have Atsumu. That’s what Atsumu says about him. _True love,_ Osamu mocks them, _gross that you’re getting it before me._

Makes losing it so much scarier.

_**five:** _

When it’s the two of them, Kageyama doesn’t talk about his boyfriend. When it’s the three of them, he can’t shut up about it.

It’s the setting thing again. That single thing they have in common. Kageyama has found the one person in the world to hyperfixate with like he always does, talk stances and minuscule movements, techniques, strategies—for the two of them it’s like chess, thinking ten moves ahead, analyzing the last ten for mistakes: “I saw how you did the back set last Friday. Did you see Oikawa dump?”

Atsumu gets caught up in it. An hour passes and Hinata hasn’t said a word, can’t contribute shit, and Kageyama’s still talking with a flush on his cheeks, the excitement in his voice rare; he gets so breathless. It’s hard to not let him.

“I’m leaving,” Hinata says, despite his inner monologue begging him to not do this.

Kageyama shuts up mid-sentence, looks scolded. Atsumu says, “To the bathroom?” but his eyes say, “Stop, please, don’t embarrass me.” With his glare, Hinata orders him to move. They’re leaving.

“Let’s get the check,” Kageyama mumbles, fidgeting with his pants for his wallet.

Atsumu stops him, his hand is on Kageyama’s forearm for precisely half a second. Hinata feels rage at himself for noticing. “How bout you get us another round, Tobio-kun? I kinda need to unwind.”

Kageyama won’t look Hinata in the eye as he nods because he knows he’s essentially choosing, and Hinata knows he’s not and it’s unfair to think that. 

“Sit,” Atsumu pulls him by his shirt. Hinata leans on him reluctantly until he’s half settled on his lap.

Atsumu doesn’t rush to criticize him. From the corner of his eye, Hinata sees Kageyama inch forward in line, almost at the counter to order their drinks. Atsumu’s running out of time to tear into him.

“So?” Hinata prods, cowering into a mental ball.

“Nothing,” Atsumu says, pulling him closer. “Thought you needed a moment.”

“I’m not a—I’m not a child, Tsumu,” his voice shakes.

Could have fooled me, is what his exes might have said. Relationships always got to this. No one can take him.

But Atsumu says—“Didn’t say that. Just said you seemed overwhelmed and I wanted to hold you because I missed you.”

Because he’s too good to be true. And Hinata’s a self-loathing, self-deprecating, jealous shit.

“I’m going home. You don’t have to come but I’m going the fuck home.”

Atsumu doesn’t let him go.

“Don’t do that,” he sighs. “Now you’re being a child. Don’t be like that with me.”

“Like what?” Hinata laughs cruelly. “I said I’d leave you to it. I clearly have nothing to say so put me out of misery and bond.”

“He’s your best friend,” Atsumu sounds disappointed in him.

Hinata’s exhausted of letting him down. Every part of him rebels with every word that comes out so simply, cued up right at the tip of his tongue despite the entirety of his shower before this being a repetition of self-orders: _please, be good, for once in your life, be normal, be strong, hold it in._

“Exactly! So it’s so sweet of him—”

“Stop.” Now he’s gonna cry because he fucked it up again. “He’s your best friend and you love him and he loves you and he came here for you. If anyone should go home, it’s me.”

He tries for Atsumu the rest of the time, and it has Kageyama fooled so he’s proud of himself for at least that. Kageyama’s smiling by the end of it and Hinata will go to bed with one less person upset at him.

_**\+ one:** _

He starts hyperventilating on the second floor, and spends ten minutes refusing to walk through the door. It’s gonna be a fight in there. Atsumu waits with him, not touching or anything. He has the right to be mad and Hinata will enter and will hear him out and will hold it together and not make it about himself but he’s so, so scared.

“Alright,” Atsumu says as soon as the door locks behind them. “What do you need me to do to help you get over this? Because I’m starting to feel kind of terrible that you think so low of me.”

“I don’t.” It’s not about you—but that’s hard to explain.

“I’ve done nothing to make you doubt me, Shouyou,” Atsumu follows him into the bedroom.

“I don’t doubt you, babe.”

He pulls the shirt off his body because it’s drenched in sweat. He was clearly going through something back there. Kageyama was in long sleeves. People were wearing jackets indoors.

Atsumu pulls him to the bed. “Then, help me understand. Please.”

Enter Kageyama.

“You know he used to have a crush on you,” Hinata whispers.

“Who? Tobio?”

“Yeah, _Tobio_. Back in high school, when you liked him too, he used to like you. A lot. He liked you for a long time. Could never do much about it because he’s like that but he was trying and if you’d asked him again, he’d have said yes. And you’d be dating him this very moment. Nice, right?”

Atsumu stares in understanding when Hinata expected pity.

“It takes more than liking someone to have a relationship,” he says.

“I know.” And I know we have a relationship that’s great. And I know I don’t want to lose it and I know that’s where I’m headed if I keep being this way, and I know I can’t stop myself.

“Do you think I’m happy?” Atsumu asks, lifting his chin.

“I know you are.”

“Are you happy, baby?”

Yes.

“Is he?”

Atsumu smiles fondly, wiping his cheeks. “For you, yes. He texted me the day you told him about us, did _you_ know _that_?”

Hinata shakes his head. Atsumu cradles his cheeks as he talks.

“Something about me breaking your heart and Ushiwaka and Hoshiumi and him all participating in some sort of... hitmanning attempt? It was very elaborate, gotta say. Kind of frightened me, not gonna lie.”

Hinata lets out a strangled laugh because trying to imagine those three idiots do anything with more than two steps seems like a recipe for disaster. Atsumu would run circles around them. Someone would definitely get hurt and that person would definitely not be the intended target.

“You know if I hurt you,” Atsumu whispers, grinning at him. “Half the volleyball players in Japan would be after the prize on my head, and the other half would be asking for your hand in marriage.”

“I know,” Hinata sniffles.

But he hadn’t known about Kageyama. _I see,_ Kageyama had said, and added nothing to it. Hinata would have been happy with any reaction, bad or good. He deserved the flack. For a long time wondered if he picked Atsumu out of spite, out of everyone, chose the one person that maybe Kageyama could have wanted, but Hinata loved Tsumu, more and more every day, and he was sorry.

“I think he knows you better than you think he does,” Atsumu tells him.

“I can’t stop thinking what if he had said something to you,” Hinata admits.

“What if you had stayed in Brazil? Or gone back? Or picked the Alders?” Atsumu rambles. “What if I had sucked Sakusa’s toe that time Bokuto dared me to and Sakusa said _No, Miya, I will cut you_?”

“Ummmm. Okaaay. I hate Sakusa now, thanks,” Hinata says.

“That was before you!” Atsumu screams, gripping his cheeks with his hands. “That’s my point, you ding dong. Who cares about what happened before you? Aren’t we gonna get hitched soon anyway?”

“Your brother seems to think so,” Hinata mumbles through his smushed lips.

“Wonder where he got that idea?” Atsumu says. “Who could have put it in his head to put it in your head, I have to wonder...”

“Who?” Hinata asks.

“I swear to god if you guess Kageyama, I am packing my shit and leaving the country. My ass would do so well in Europe. I have that European glow about me. Parisian, some would say.”

“Really?” Hinata asks.

Atsumu stares back, deadpan. “Gotta do everything myself.” 

“Do what?” Hinata asks.

Atsumu sighs, letting go of his face to hug his body instead. ”You’ll see, my little idiot. You will see.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, the exchange started today so check out the amazing fics coming in! I have one too, hidden somewhere in there hehe. atsuhina supremacy 
> 
> uno comment, kudos, thought pays for like ten future fics in my silly brain so pls consider donating. i love all of you.
> 
> I have written like 5 others atsuhina fics so check them out if you want more of these silly boys. 
> 
> it me: [twitter](https://twitter.com/kitcassia/status/1313234177509089280?s=21).


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